[jcytong]

Maybe your takeaway is right but there's also a huge piece that wasn't captured in your one-liner

"We lost about 2 years of our time and $30k of my savings (which was most of it). "

"Getting those first 10/100+ customers was really hard. We relied primarily on direct outreach via cold email and social media messaging to obtain those first customers. Taking the time to reach out directly to customers for a $7/month plan was painful"

[throwqwerty]

that's because all of that goes without saying (since I assume that the typical hn reader already knows about 1. pivots being costly 2. the early adopter grind). those points aren't key features of their succuss either because every startup experiences those pains.

[mikekchar]

Or you could look at it another way. Perhaps there are many, many that would be successful if only you can get past the first obstacles. The success may be less due to it being a good idea and more to do with overcoming the obstacles. I often wonder how things would be viable businesses if you were good at grinding.

[jcytong]

I think most of the "overnight successes" are just stories where people look at the end results without point out the steps in the middle.

Outside of the few "lottery winners", most are grinders that didn't commit business suicide.

Major props for those who grind until they can share their tales.

[throwqwerty]

>I often wonder how things would be viable businesses if you were good at grinding.

you should go ask a miller.